Free Market Biology?

Reading Petryna's descriptions of biological citizenship, beyond what Rose and Novas (2003) discuss concerning the biologization of politics and of people and of suffering, includes a complex picture of resource scarcity, entitlement and competition in a society shifting from a socialist economy to a free market economy.

At the end of chapter four, Petryna describes an interesting predicament: 1)  the relevance and durability of a system of perpetuating illness, as she explains: "The randomness of the law ( in the form of denials of access, exclusions, postponements) combined with economic instability is precisely what ensures the system’s durability and a collective drive toward illness” (p107);  and 2) the total unraveling of this system by capitalism--per Petryna: "The sufferer stood for a sociality made obsolete by an emerging capitalism” (p114).

Drawing on Wallerstein's Center and Periphery ideas, I think about Ukraine's shift into a free market system, which given the time of the shift has also signified an entry into the global market.  At the periphery of the world economy, subject to the lending agreements of the IMF and perhaps trying to attract investments from global industries, Chrenobyl suffering is cast into the language, not only of biomedicine, but also of economics.  

While it would be, likely, naive to claim that the inequalities were less in the socialist system (as Petryna points out for example, the military was not compensated nearly as well for their work as were other citizens who elected to participate in the cleanup), nonetheless it seems that there was a collective/shared spirit surrounding the clean-up experience and the acknowledgement of the suffering of it, as seen in the way that Ukraine initially established the intention of caring for those affected.  In contrast, under emerging capitalism, the way in which evidence of radiation exposure is minimized or altered (as in the case of Rita, for example, p123), seems to me to reflect the larger disparities of a group of people suddenly cast into a "periphery" role.  Ironically, becoming sick is the choice means of regaining some power.

One thing I really didn't understand is why the political obstruction of the efforts of the International Chernobyl Disabled Person's Aid Charity Fund?  How does a group like this challenge the state--it seems like a possible new solution (albeit not a great one) in dealing with the volume of those suffering--or is the perpetuance of the acknowledgement of the suffering in itself the greatest threat to the "progress" of the country?  Yeah, or is there another way to look at this?